Recently I was honored and delighted to be invited to keynote the opening of the new digital HUB in Aachen, where I spoke about why and how corporations engage with startups (and sometimes vice versa).

As a known startup evangelist, the venue was perhaps the most fitting I’ve spoken at so far. The event was held in the digital church, a church converted to a coworking space!

I think it’s safe to say the opening sparked some interest… The digital church was packed!

That guy…

These were the slides I used:

Dr. Michael Bayer of IHK Aachen welcoming us to the opening of the digitalHUB Aachen – and what a location; The first coworking space in a church in Germany!

And what an incredible finals it was; Once again supported by Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf and Marketing Club Düsseldorf, a record +1.300 people signed up pre-event, insuring a full house at the spectacular event location at Düsseldorf Airport DUS.

The Rheinland Pitch is Germany’s largest continuously running startup pitching event since 2013. It’s a monthly startup pitching event, where regional startups in all phases are invited to apply. . Our fantastic sponsors insures the event stays free for the startups and it’s free for the audience.

The selected startups (usually 7-12 per month) receive a full day of pitch coaching and help with their pitch decks for free (by me), pitching their results at the end of the day. From those pitches we select the three best to put on stage a week later, in the evening on the last Monday of the month, in front of an audience of press, media, investors, students, entrepreneurs and the general public that selects the best pitch by public voting.

Every six months, we have a best-of-the-best finals where the winners from the last preceding months are put on an even larger stage at an even larger event. At these events we also have an expert jury that counts for 50% of the votes.

We call this the Rheinland Pitch Summer & Winter Finals.

This guy was moderating…

Three best-of startups plus an additional wildcard were pitching…

The audience was engaged and entertained…

More information and images from the finals can be found on the Rheinland Pitch Facebook page.

This week I was helping out Cologne’s own Tom Bachem’s <>CODE University, coaching youth building interesting products, solutions to real problems, at the Code + Design Camp in the Balloni event location in Cologne.

Inspiring to experience the level of creativity and capabilities of the youths in attendance…